Reunification Only Way to Defuse Korea Crisis

Barack Obama's foreign-policy failures, and those of his predecessors, regarding North Korea, are coming back to bedevil Donald Trump's new presidency. Trump administration spokesmen have rightly said that Obama's policy of "strategic patience," a synonym for doing nothing, is over. But they have not yet articulated a replacement strategy.

Analysts across the political spectrum now believe that North Korea is perilously close to fabricating nuclear devices — at least five of which have already been detonated — small enough to mount on intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of striking targets within the continental United States. Some estimates posit this capability as early as 2018, with targets closer to the Korean Peninsula, including Japan and Hawaii likely at risk earlier.

Time is thus in desperately short supply, one of the fruits of 25 years of wasted efforts negotiating with Pyongyang. The harsh reality is that Kim Jung Un and his predecessors were never going to be chit-chatted out of their nuclear-weapons program, which they have always regarded as essential to regime survival. Neither persuasion nor coercion, nor any mix of the two, has succeeded before, and we have no reason to believe they will start succeeding now.

There are any number of suggestions about how to increase military pressure on North Korea, including scenarios for pre-emptive attacks against its nuclear and ballistic-missile assets. Certainly, no American president should be willing to countenance the risk to innocent U.S. civilians, and those of our vulnerable friends and allies in the region, that Pyongyang's erratic leadership increasingly poses. Moreover, we must be sure China understands President Trump's determination — reportedly explained in person to Chinese President Xi Jinping during the recent Mar-a-Lago summit — not to be held hostage by Pyongyang.

Unfortunately, however, years of savage Obama Administration defense budget cuts have rendered U.S. military options far from optimal. Obama underfunded national missile-defense programs, thereby rendering this last line of defense woefully inadequate compared to how President George W. Bush originally conceived it.

Similarly, our ability to neutralize North Korea's military threats to the South, which have long worried United States and South Korean decision-makers, is severely challenged.

Since an American president's highest obligation is ensuring the safety of our own citizens, pre-emptive or other military action against Pyongyang must always be a live option. And even though the time for peacefully eliminating the North's nuclear threat is rapidly disappearing, there is still a diplomatic strategy worth trying. Indeed, it is now the only option with any prospect for long-term resolution of the ongoing Korean crisis.

Reunification of the two Koreas, effectively ending the North Korean state and merging it into the political and economic structures of the South, is both feasible and desirable. There is simply no point in further negotiations with Pyongyang, nor will anything be achieved by urging Beijing to strong-arm Pyongyang.

For decades, China has played a double game, asserting its opposition to a North Korean nuclear capability, but doing little or nothing to prevent it. Beijing has worried that effectively pressuring Pyongyang, which Beijing has the undeniable capacity to do, will collapse the regime itself, producing massive refugee flows into China and a long-planned U.S.-South Korean armed intervention, leaving China facing American military forces across the Yalu River.

China didn't relish that prospect in 1950, nor does it today. Instead, President Trump should persuade Beijing that its own best interests lie in directing its economic leverage toward swift, orderly reunification of the Peninsula. China and the U.S. could jointly facilitate this process through mutually applied pressure and communication with the North's captive population.

Most significantly, America has no interest in a military presence along China's border, just as it prefers today not to have its troops in fixed positions along the DMZ. Instead, we have long sought to concentrate our forces near Busan, making them available for rapid redeployment as events might require.

There is a modus vivendi here acceptable to China, although negotiations on this and other reunification issues will undoubtedly be difficult.

Korea's post-World War II partition along the 38th Parallel in 1945 was always intended to be temporary.

Three South Korean soldiers watch the border at Panmunjeom, in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea. (Image source: Henrik Ishihara Globaljuggler/Wikimedia Commons)

The Cold War intervened, however, followed by the Korean War, and the Peninsula's partition seemed frozen, as did Germany's. But just as communism's European collapse led to German reunification, so too, in time, will the partition of Korea be reversed.

The real question is whether it will end peacefully, with a minimum of turmoil and disruption, or whether it will end catastrophically with considerable loss of human life. China's leaders, scholars, and policy analysts are split over the reunification issue.

Increasingly, however, key Chinese strategists have come to conclude that the Kim family's authoritarian dynasty is an ugly piece of baggage, of little real strategic utility to China, but one that brings with it enormous burdens and risks.

Had we opened quiet negotiations with China over reuniting Korea a decade ago, the problem might already be resolved. Starting talks only now places the diplomacy in a race with North Korea's rapidly advancing nuclear capabilities, with the outcome far from certain.

Nonetheless, since we are clearly and correctly unwilling to accept a nuclear North Korea with global strike capabilities, and since we wish to avoid if possible outright military action against the North, reunification is plainly the most desirable outcome.

John R. Bolton, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations under former President George W. Bush. He is Chairman of Gatestone Institute. Reprinted from Newsmax Magazine by permission of the author.

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24 Reader Comments

Georgia • Jul 7, 2017 at 08:18

We should be carefull about re-unification, given the example of Germany and its mutation into a new GDR that appears to take place right now under the guidance of a lady well trained in GDR propaganda and manipulation techniques... I guess an undivided GDR was not what Reagan once had in mind when he called on Gorbachov: "Tear down this " wall.

But, alas, that is what it turns out to be in the end. Germany has long ceased to be the free country it once used to be when it received democracy from America, Britain and France.... In 2013 the Constitution of old has been trashed. And people by force have to slave for entertainment and radio programs they deeply resent..... Public resources are taken without funneling the money back to society at large and by democratic principles. The second cash box for our entertainment gang has been officially declared to be no "tax" and thus is beyond democratic control and therefore no longer needs to compete for funds with hospitals, schools, ambulances etc. Meaning that entertainment gang will thrive even when no one has anything left to eat.... So much to the re-united Germany that just lately also violated the human right to free speech with a new internet law.

Same could happen with Korea with the North thriving upon the South and blotting it out eventually and, of course peacefully as it happens in Germany now.

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Seanmhar • Jun 5, 2017 at 16:25

The Partition of Korea in 1945 led to the Korean War of the early '50s, which cost the U.S. about 50,000 K.I.A.s. Vietnam was divided in similar fashion in 1954, and this caused a war in which about 65,00 U.S. fighting men lost their lives. While Germany was split into East and West states, there was an increased possibility of a major war between the Soviet Union and the Western powers. Another nation in which Partition has cost thousands of lives and millions in property damage is Ireland. Despite the best efforts of G.B. and the Southern Irish state, Partition is still a not a perfect solution for the Emerald Isle.

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howard dewhirst • Jun 5, 2017 at 07:17

Re unification of Korea would put US troops on the border with China; that will never happen without another Korean/China war.

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Kay • Jun 2, 2017 at 12:33

Today's circumstances are much different than events occurring during the Reagan administration. Reunification would be the best option for North and South Korea; however, I don't see the possibility of a free and unified Korean state as long as China maintains its iron-fisted form of government. A unified Korean state would likely descend into communism.

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JoAnn Leichliter • Jun 2, 2017 at 04:47

North Korea is an economic and probably an ecological basket case. Take a stroll down Memory Lane and recall the economic burden German reunification placed on West Germany. Sentimentally, Korean reunification is great; in reality, it will be an incredibly costly nightmare. And who will finance it? Grab your wallet, Taxpayer...

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Michael S • Jun 2, 2017 at 03:38

"The real question is whether it will end peacefully, with a minimum of turmoil and disruption, or whether it will end catastrophically with considerable loss of human life. China's leaders, scholars, and policy analysts are split over the reunification issue. Increasingly, however, key Chinese strategists have come to conclude [nothing -- corrected it for you].

I have no doubt, that either

[1] We will engage in a bloody war with North Korea, or

[2] Kim Jong Il will get a hernia from laughing at us.

My only question, is what the South Koreans plan to do. They do not seem concerned in the least, that the US is threatened by the Fat Boy; they hate the Japanese more than they treasure life, and they will sell themselves out to whoever gives them good business deals.

The US needs to act, alone or with the Japanese, or we should be prepared to look as idiotic as we did under Obama.

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af • Jun 2, 2017 at 01:05

How about it being Germany, Jr? They'll reunite, then the successor government in Seoul will let in hundreds of thousands of Muslim migrants, and the reunited country will go to hell, just like Merkel's Germany of today. The reunited Korea will then be irrelevant and beset by internal problems, and will cease to be a threat to anyone. And they all lived happily ever after...

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Soxtory • Jun 1, 2017 at 22:59

I agree normally with Mr. Bolton but I do not see how this is possible. The time for a premptive strike is upon us. The longer we wait the worse it gets as we already know.

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Chuck • Jun 1, 2017 at 22:33

Mr. Kim, Tear down this wall...! Mr. Kim says East Germany's masters in Moscow weren't as unpredictable as I am. Democrat leaders of late 40's and early 50's (President Truman, mainly) wimped out on facing Mao down at the Yalu river, the traditional boundary, and ignored natural nationalistic feelings of the Koreans thus letting China control the settlement that we have enjoyed (ignored) for 65 years.

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Juanita Skelton • Jun 1, 2017 at 21:16

I would think that getting reunification done is the easy part. Getting assimilation, after reunification, is the harder challenge. Two governments, under one umbrella, working together harmoniously? Oil and water don't mix! Even the peaceful coexistence we might believe would just miraculously happen, would probably cause SEATO major headaches for the long-term. One side tyrannical authoritarian; the other trying to hold onto democracy while balancing the budget of economic priorities.

North Korea is throwing it's ICBMs everywhere and anywhere just because it wants to distract all of us. It's truest capacity is it's "piggyback capacity" that has yet to be seen or tested. If, for instance, North Korea wants to hurt us, she must trigger, by being the first to strike, thus causing upheaval in our response to the strike. Who can respond next, would have to be an ally of ours who has probably had to be aligned with North Korea in some other way. Then treaties, etc. come into play and loyalties are weakened across the board.

It is a great idea, reunification! It is not going to be an easy peace between these two neighbors.

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Bisley • Jun 1, 2017 at 19:51

Reunification will be the consequence of the solution, not the solution itself. It will first require the elimination of the present North Korean regime, by whatever means. China will do nothing toward undermining the North Korean government they have defended and supported since its birth -- the Chinese government is responsible for its existence, and the form it has taken.

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Jean Terry • Jun 1, 2017 at 18:49

Mr. Bolton is right as usual. Now, I don't see how reunification can happen without an all out war as we have let it go too long. Never should have happened in the first place. We should have not let Korea be divided. With this crazy little guy running North Korea, this seems to be the biggest powder keg in the world right now.

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Brien Doyle • Jun 1, 2017 at 18:43

Not even the Americans have been talking about re-unification. Germany opened up because the Russian military 'effect' no longer had totalitarian control of the people as in previous decades; and which still exists in the Koreas.

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Wally • Jun 1, 2017 at 18:36

North Korea would have to get a leader who subscribes to peaceful reunification. The N.K citizens will follow their leader anywhere. We need to start at the top.

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Kim Bruce • Jun 1, 2017 at 18:30

I wonder if things would have been much different had the US deployed nuclear weapons on the DPRK back in 1950?http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/what-if-america-used-nuclear-weapons-during-the-korean-war-17900

I don't think the people living in the South would appreciate a reunification with the North. There is bound to be trouble. If China is going to handle this I don't envy them one bit.

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Laura • Jun 1, 2017 at 18:08

Oh, how I wish Mr. Bolton had been brought into the Trump Administration!

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Carl • Jun 1, 2017 at 16:47

As usual Mr. Bolton tells it like it is.

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John Gardner Carl • Jun 1, 2017 at 19:57

He certainly does, although I for one am convinced we would not need any troops even in Busan should reunification be achieved.

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Nuhu Othman • Jun 1, 2017 at 16:10

Certainly, reunification seems to be the possible option to the Kim's dynasty, and the North Koreans prosperity. But how can this be achieved? Is it by the United States' deployment of soft power or hard power though with a clandestinely and uncollaborative China? I believe it is obvious that the United States' once security blanket that allies have enjoyed is regrettably becoming a thing of the past.

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Joseph • Jun 1, 2017 at 15:15

I hope politicians from both sides of the aisle in Washington have finally, at long last learned that appeasement of bullies, tyrants and terrorists only leads to more violence and catastrophe. But I'm not very convinced that the Left have learned much. Sadly, during the wasted Obama years our options have seriously degraded or totally disappeared as NK prepared for nuclear war we and the US did nothing but talk. There is precious little room for error or hesitation now with North Korea.

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Charles Henry Dore Joseph • Jun 1, 2017 at 18:27

The only way that reunification can happen is if one of the insiders takes him out.

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Kenneth Smith Joseph • Jun 1, 2017 at 20:29

"appeasement of bullies, tyrants and terrorists only leads to more violence and catastrophe."

Appeasement is seen as weakness, and merely encourages the appeased to up the ante, it has been ever thus, so why should it change.
Addison appeased Bonaparte when Britain was in a position of strength, on the basis of peace at any price, thus guaranteeing more than a further decade of war before Waterloo resolved the problem. Chamberlain appeased Hitler, that didn't work out at all well.

It is no different today with North Korea, although the stakes are much higher, a diplomatic solution is preferable, even if it is forced on an unwilling North Korea by China in conjunction with the USA, but appeasement and doing nothing should not be the option taken.

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Josepht Charles Henry Dore • Jun 2, 2017 at 15:47

Joseph, you are right about an insider, but he is so well defended and massacres anyone, including those in high government posts whom he suspects in his paranoid mind, of disloyalty, it is next to impossible to remove him. However, if the NK people rose up as a whole and refused to put up with his nonsense there may be a chance, but nearly everyone in a communistic society is afraid of everyone else; even your closest confidant could be a traitor to the government. Fear keeps everyone in check and the government counts on this.